


Interview with a Hero

by Phantom_Ice



Series: Phantom's Fire and Ice [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Character Study, Except it's not footage, Found Footage, Found Text?, Gen, Interviews, Kinda, i guess, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 02:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11681679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Ice/pseuds/Phantom_Ice
Summary: What made Danny Fenton a hero? Was it the portal accident, or something more?





	Interview with a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys, I've been writing on fanfiction.net for a while now, and am finally getting around to cross-posting all my stuff here. This particular story is hella old. I normally love constructive criticism... but for this one you're probably better off not even bothering. It's been years. I know the problems. But hey, if you still want to, go ahead. If you notice a consistent problem, point it out.
> 
> Without further ado...

Minutes of Interview with Daniel James Fenton-Phantom

One week after the global incident dubbed 'The Disastroid'

Conducted by the Government of the United States of America for documentation in the United States Hall of Records and the Library of Congress

Excerpt presented to the public by the FIHL, Foundation for Interspecies Harmonious Living

Short handed by Butch Hartman and Translated from shorthand by David Kaufman

I = Interviewer  
D = Daniel

(Start Excerpt, Question 8, Previously they spoke of Daniel's family, friends, and home life)

I- So, 'Danny', why did you continue to do what you did? There was a lot of resentment toward your 'ghost half' up in Amity Park.

D- *Shifts on stool, adjusts mic* I, I guess it was just the right thing to do, and I was always sure of that. It's not like I could just ignore a cry for help when I could be the only person who could help.

I- That brings up another point. Those same people [those who knew of you without knowing you were also Danny Phantom], say they often sensed an aura of kindness about you. They could feel that you really cared, and you were always helping others, even as Danny Fenton.

D- *laughs lightly and then looks contemplative* Well, that's a way I never would have thought I'd be described a year ago.

I- Really, why not?

D- You know, I wasn't always like that. I'd like it to go on official record that I didn't always care so much. *here secretary adds statement into official record* In all honesty, I was like every other teenager, selfish and self-serving, perhaps even more so than the average considering I had grown up learning to kind of take care of myself when my parents were out hunting ghosts. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents and we were all actually pretty close, they just sometimes forgot to teach me some basic things as an impressionable child. I grew up with people who would shoot anything that glowed, so as you can imagine I never got that whole 'violence isn't the answer' vibe, and the whole 'talk out your problems' thing didn't really make it through to me either. I'm getting off topic, though. The point is I never cared much about others, besides Sam, Tucker, Jazz, and my parents, that is. You know, everyone who I thought cared about me. I cared about the people who cared about me, that's nothing abnormal, though, right? What I'm trying to say, is that the accident... changed me.

I assure you, had you asked me the day before, or heck, even the minute before, I got my ghost powers what I would do if I had super powers, I would have laughed and said it was obvious. I would have said I would get revenge on my old bully, mostly in the form of pranks, but I wouldn't have thought any physical pain was uncalled for, either. If you told me I would be able to take over people's bodies I would have told you I would hook myself up with the hottest girl in school. If you would have told me I could go invisible and walk through walls, I would have said I would change my grades or get into movie theaters for free. Honestly, being a superhero, I wouldn't have been able to imagine it. I just wasn't that kind of person. I wasn't mean, but I wasn't exactly the all giving turn-thy-cheek kinda guy either. Sam, one of my two best friends, was the one who was always trying to save the world. I was just living in it.

I guess this is why it was so surprising when I, of all people, actually got 'superpowers'. After I had time to adjust, I found myself wondering if the universe really had a plan, because it must have been an accident. The universe couldn't have chosen me, weak, freakish, no more righteous or deserving than the next guy, Danny Fenton, to get these sort of powers. I thought about it and thought about it, until I came to the inevitable conclusion. It wasn't a gift, it was a curse. Not a reward, a punishment for... for something I must have done. I mean, becoming part ghost in a family of ghost hunters? It was obviously the universe's plan to have me suffer.

However, even after all this thinking on the matter, I still didn't suddenly decide to become a hero. I wasn't even aware of this new part of my consciousness that suddenly burned to help people. Sure, I felt like something was missing with me, like something was wrong, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. At first, I was too busy panicking to think about it. After all, that was a time where I think being selfish was justified. I was turning into some kind of monster from my parents' fairytales! The one that always gets killed by the hero (which was usually my father). For goodness' ache, I thought I was dead! I had no way of knowing if I was really 'half ghost', like my friends had hypothesized, or just a ghost with a human disguise. It was a scary time in my life.

By the time I stopped panicking enough to realize I felt... empty inside, I was already so used to the feeling I didn't think much of it, and when I did, well I simply couldn't figure it out. Not until the little girl in the pink dress.

At this point I had saved Sam and Tucker from small ghosts a few times, even defended my parents a bit from in the shadows, but I had still never really done anything for anyone else. Surprisingly enough, the moment that I fulfilled that need I felt in my core (even if I hadn't known that was what it was at the time) had absolutely nothing to to with ghosts, and I really mean nothing. Not even Phantom made an appearance, although I guess I wouldn't have done what I did without that part of me.

It was a normal day in Amity Park, and let me remind you this is back when normal really was normal, no ghosts, no other dimensions, no evil school psychologists or mind controlling pop stars (well, maybe that last one, but not quite so literally). I had stayed after class to clean up the science lab after 'dropping' my fourteenth through twenty-fourth beakers (I had been carrying a box) and had encouraged Sam and Tuck to go on without me. Honestly, I think I needed time to think by myself. I loved that my friends were there for me, but I really did need time to think about what was happening by myself, to make my own decisions without influence. Don't get me wrong, I loved Sam and Tucker, but she had the habit of forcefully pushing her opinion on anyone standing too close, and he always encouraged the path of least resistance. It was a good thing they weren't with me that day, or things might have turned out differently. They might have stopped my recklessness, or distracted me so I wouldn't have noticed her until it was too late, or bombarded me with questions or something after it happened so I didn't have time to think about it.

I was about halfway home, just passing by the park, when it happened. I was sort of daydreaming, so I didn't really register the yellow ball bouncing into the street. I also didn't really notice the little girl in the pink dress chasing after it. I saw them, but I didn't realize what it meant, not until the honk and the scream. I whipped my head out of my selfish musings and looked towards the source of the noise. What I saw was a middle-aged woman running through trees and foliage on the other side of the road, panicked look on her face and a name screamed on her lips. There was also a car. A black town car was skidding forward as the driver slammed on the breaks, horn blaring like a train at a crossing. Right in the middle of it all was a little girl in a pink dress holding a yellow ball, completely paralyzed to the spot. Everything was in slow motion. I watched her eyes go wide as she stared at the advancing monster, her grip on the ball loosened and it fell out of her hands. Tears were falling out of her mother's eyes as she ran, and I could feel the veil of panic coming from the car, because we all realized the same thing. The car wasn't going to make the stop. The girl was too small. A five-year-old was going to die.

I don't really know where my thoughts went after that, I don't really think I was thinking at all, because the next thing I was aware of was the fact that my feet were no longer touching the sidewalk. I wasn't actually flying, but it sure felt like that at the time. I had kicked myself off from the ground and propelled myself in the direction of the girl in a dive, hands stretched out in front of me. To this day I have no clue how I made that jump, I couldn't so much as make the average benchmark anything in PE, I was scrawny in every sense of the word, but yet I'm sure that I didn't use any ghost power. As I flowed through the air, there was no fear for myself, only pure unpolluted worry for her. I saw everything and nothing at the same time. I realized to some extent that I was literally millimeters from a speeding two-ton projectile of metal and gasoline, that my arm was scraping against the grille of said projectile and probably getting a nasty burn, that the mother had just made it to the sidewalk, but really, none of that seemed important. I could only see the terrified girl.

My hands wrapped around her frail form, and I curled my own body around hers in a fetal position. I felt my foot scrape against the ground, causing me to flip so my back was no facing the ground. Then there was a whoosh as the vehicle passed right where the two of us had just been. I landed with a thunk on the other side, my back skidding slightly on the hard concrete. When I blinked open my eyes I finally seemed to realize I was lying on the ground with a five-year-old girl clutching onto my shirt with a death grip and crying for her life.

I stood in a daze, still carrying the girl who was clutching onto my shirt. I heard a car door opening behind me and saw the mother in front of me.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, my baby, my baby," the woman was hysterical, with good reason, as she took who I assume to be her daughter, from me, holding the girl to her chest as she smiled through her tears. I responded with a really intelligent,

"Uhhhh..." Not that anyone was listening anyways.

Then a man ran up from behind me.

"Is she okay!? She just ran up right in front of me, and I hit the break but I was already too close and..." The driver, I assumed. He kept on talking, and the mother kept on crying and patting her daughter's head and smiling, and I just thought it was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen. Then attention turned to me. It started with the driver.

"Young man, that was the bravest thing I've ever seen," he placed his hand on my shoulder, I just nodded, still unable to speak. Then the mother. She had her hand around her daughter's shoulders, holding the little girl close, as she turned her tear-stained face towards me.

"Thank you," she enveloped me in a tight hug that she obviously felt couldn't begin to express her gratitude. "Oh, thank you,". She pulled back still holding my shoulders. Her eyes roamed his face and landed on my left arm, and she frowned worriedly. "Oh, dear, you're hurt," she fretted, taking the arm in hers.

"Hmmm?" I looked down at my arm still in a stunned trance.

It had a long burnt scrape running down the shoulder to the elbow from when I scraped along the hot car. It looked like it hurt, but I could barely feel it. Later I told Sam, Tucker, and my parents I got the burn messing with something I shouldn't have been down in the lab, the whole incident and what I had discovered just felt too... private at the time.

The driver came up to me.

"Oh, boy, that's a bad burn right there. Here, let me drive you to the hospital to get it patched up," he offered. I shook my head

"Uh, um, no, no it's fine. I'll just put something on it at, um, home," I woman frowned, but warmly.

"Are you sure, honey? I would be happy to take you as well,"

I smiled.

"I'm fine, miss," I looked around and managed to at least gather some of my wits. "Oh, man, what time is it?"

"Three twenty-four,"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go, I'm supposed to meet my friends in ten minutes, bye!" And just like that, I ran off with a wave. Though, as I was leaving, I heard the shout of a little voice, and when I glanced back, there she was. The little girl in the pink dress, a smile on her face as she waved at me,

"Bye, Mister!"

As soon as I was gone, my trance came back. I just felt so... different. As I walked I tried and I tried to figure it out until I finally realized what it was. That emptiness inside me ever since the accident, it was full. I felt happy, really truly happy, for the first time in a really long time, even counting the time before the accident, I just felt fulfilled. Still, even after I figured that out, I couldn't really figure out why. It wasn't the first time I saved someone, like I said, Sam, Tuck, and my parents had all had their small brush ins with death, and I saved their lives to, so why didn't realize it before?

As I slowed to a walk, still taking no heed of anything but my thoughts, it finally hit me, the entirety of what I had done. I had saved a little girl's life. Me, weak normal loser Danny Fenton. Not super powered Phantom, and not just with a simple grapple with an enemy. I realized it wasn't even about just a life. It was the first time Danny Fenton had done much of anything for anyone he didn't know. It was the first purely selfless act he had ever committed. With no worry for his own safety or well-being, and let me tell you, it was an amazing feeling.

I think that's when I became who I am today. That moment that I realized what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to give it. Don't get me wrong, I still have my tussles with morality, but I can't just ignore other people anymore. I have this deep pulsing desire at the center of my being that just urges help. It hurts whenever I see someone who could use help, and I don't do anything, and I guess that's what being a hero is all about. So I realize this sounds cheesy, but it's not about the super powers, my first heroic act had nothing to do with mine, it's about the people. It's about living for others. When I was starting high school, if you would have told me that I would put myself in harms way for a stranger, I would have looked at you funny, but today, today I would gladly give up my life for a single person who hates me, and it's all thanks to some dropped beakers, and a little girl in a pink dress who didn't know any better than to run into the middle of a street.

I- That is an amazing story, Danny, and I'm sure wherever that girl and her mother are now, they are forever grateful.

D- Ya, but, it makes me wonder. *far off look in his eyes*

I- About what?

D- If I am really as good of a person as people make me out to be. I mean, as far as I can figure, I started to feel this aching to help after the accident that turned me into a half ghost. Ghosts are obsessive creatures. What if helping people is my obsession, what if I'm not really a good person at all, I just have to help people because I don't have any other choice, like someone sentenced to community service for a crime, you could hardly call them a good person for what they do. *looks down in what is perceived by the psychologist as shame*

I- Danny, where do ghosts obsessions come from?

D- *seems taken aback by the question*. Well, usually from what they did in life or something they realized during their death.

I- Then you must realize a ghost's obsession corresponds to their life, it isn't random. Since you told us about your selfish life before the accident, tell us about what you realized during it.

D- I- *comes to a slow realization* I realized... that I hadn't done enough to help others while I was alive, that I never really accomplished much of anything fulfilling. That I could offer more to the world.

I- Thinking about others while you think you're dying, sounds like a hero to me.

(End excerpt)


End file.
